Extracting Honey

Today I went to a 4H beekeeper's club meeting. We extracted honey, which was a remarkable experience! I'm now going to share with you how honey gets from hive to table.

1. The frames are removed from the hive box. Then, the wax caps that the bees cover honey cells with are removed with a hot knife. Any caps still remaining on the cell can be removed with a scraper.

2. The frames are put vertically inside a special container. When the lever is cranked around, the frames will spin inside. After a lot of cranking, the honey will have dripped to the bottom of the barrel. These containers were first built around the 1880s in Germany.

3. The honey is strained and put into jars.

And thats it! The strained honey can be eaten!

You may be interested in keeping bees. A great place to go to learn about it is the World of Beekeeping at

http://www.worldofbeekeeping.com/

Bees are great helpers of the environment because they are essential for pollination and plant reproduction, and we can thank bees for about one third of the food we eat. However, many bee species are disappearing now. You can help them by planting a native flower garden with plants such as Woodland Phlox, Wild Columbine, Swamp Milkweed, and Cardinal Flowers.

Bees don't just produce a delicious substance, they also help the environment and give us food! Three cheers for bees!